


Swear It (the patterns remix)

by an_aphorism



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Emotional Sex, Episode: s02e01 Across The Universe, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, shiro whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:28:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24736936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/an_aphorism/pseuds/an_aphorism
Summary: He’d seen Zarkon wield the Bayard, he’d seen Keith pilot Black. There was no reason to think Shiro himself was anything other than a stand-in for one of them. A black paladin soon to be replaced.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 184
Collections: Sheith Remix 2020





	Swear It (the patterns remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psiten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psiten/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Patterns of Proximity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8621149) by [psiten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psiten/pseuds/psiten). 



> For the 2020 Sheith Remix! I got psiten, and chose to remix their "Patterns of Proximity" fic because who doesn't love a little S1/S2 angst?

_When Allura and Coran find us, they’ll fix you right up._

Shiro wished he could believe that. He wished he could believe like Keith believes, without pain and doubt. But now… he knows better.

He’d seen Zarkon wield the Bayard, he’d seen Keith pilot Black. There was no reason to think Shiro himself was anything other than a stand-in for one of them. A black paladin soon to be replaced.

And sooner even, if no one came for them. The glowing wound in Shiro’s side was a terrible ache. He’d told Keith it was fine, that he’d manage until they were rescued, but he see how Keith watched him, concerned and pretending not to be.

“I’ll be right back,” Keith said and headed for Black.

Shiro sighed when the other man was out of ear shot. The atmosphere of this planet wasn’t much different from Earth’s, and yet Shiro could feel it press down upon him. Above was a purple-blue sky, and beyond that pinprick stars in arrangements he'd never seen before.

The weight of all those stars were somehow threatening. It was as if at any moment Shiro might let down his guard and they could come careening down from the sky and strike him. Strike all of them. Smite them out as the feeble creatures they were. Because if there was one thing Shiro was becoming certain of, it was his own mortality. As big as the universe was, it wasn’t big enough for Shiro and Zarkon, not big enough for two Black paladins.

Maybe once Shiro might have thought he was strong enough to succeed, certainly pre-Kerberos he thought himself strong enough to overcome even his own body’s illness. He looked down at his metal arm now, then at the glowing wound. It was hard to believe himself invulnerable now. Hard to believe that just his strength of will would be enough.

“Here,” Keith said reappearing. In his hand was a small white patch. “For the pain.”

Shiro almost opened his mouth to say that it was fine, but a sharp look from Keith had him taking the patch.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Keith said, walking back to the fire. Keith had rigged up a small cooking fire with a pan and some meat from Black. In one afternoon he’d flown Black, rescued Shiro, gotten their distress signal working, and dinner sorted.

And Shiro had just sat there, feeling sorry for himself.

That was exactly why Keith was going to make the better leader.

Shiro put on the patch as he watched Keith work. Occasionally Keith would look over with a question on his face, but then he would frown and go back to the task. The silence was fine, Shiro would make a poor conversationalist at this juncture he was sure.

The pain faded away slowly to a dull ache with the patch, but even then Shiro's mood only further soured. He felt angry at his own lack of suffering.

If he’d only been better, stronger, they wouldn’t be in this mess. He deserved—

“Hey,” Keith appeared with a plate, “Where’d you go?”

Shiro shook his head, couldn’t bear to meet Keith’s eyes. He took the plate and they ate in silence.

Or rather Keith ate, and Shiro tried to summon up anything inside him that resembled hunger. Mostly he poked at the meat and defrosted alien vegetables.

“I know I’m no Hunk,” Keith said when he spotted Shiro’s lack of progress.

Ashamed, Shiro forced himself to take a bite. “No, it’s fine.”

Keith just looked at him, unimpressed. Shiro swallowed and felt the food go down rough. Keith got up and started to pack up the dinner supplies, his body language all sharp and stiff movements. The air held a wrongness, and it made it nearly impossible for Shiro to eat anything more. All he felt was his own disappointment, his own shame sitting in his throat. He’d done this to Keith, to all of them. He’d gone to Kerberos and brought back this madness, dragged the one person who deserved a happy and peaceful life into something that surely ended in more than a little death and destruction.

The intensity of the harm he'd done to Keith twisted now into something with spines. Shiro had maybe once believed he was a good person, but how could he be when this is what he did to someone he loved?

“I’m going to go clean these,” Keith didn’t look at him as he gestured toward the sound of running water.

“Keith—“ The word fell out then, before Keith could step out of their little bubble. Keith paused and his eyes swiveled finally to Shiro. Shiro opened his mouth but… nothing else would come. He couldn’t say he was sorry because it wasn’t enough. Nothing would ever be enough.

The silence stretched for a few seconds, and then Keith’s shoulders fell. “I’ll be back in a few,” he said, and then left.

##

When Keith came back he didn’t say anything, but helped Shiro up and into Black. It was an awkward, silent task that Shiro hated for the fact that his body didn’t hurt with every step. If it did at least he would feel like he was paying for _something_.

In Shiro’s room in Black, Keith set him down on the bed and then began to remove his own suit.

“I’m sleeping here, and I don’t want to argue about it,” Keith said.

Shiro didn’t say anything, couldn’t. He didn’t feel like he had the right to after the way the evening had gone. It was probably better if he started letting Keith lead anyway, he was clearly better at it.

They took turns in the bathroom, and by the time that Shiro came out Keith was already in the bed, poking at his communicator. Shiro didn’t say anything, and slid into the small amount of space left. The lights went down, and after a few minutes Keith sighed and put the communicator aside. When he shuffled down into the sheets Shiro could feel the heat of him all along his left side.

Shiro should be exhausted after the day, but his head was still buzzing. The odds were good that very little sleep would be coming to him tonight. If only he could—

Everything he could say he cast aside just as it came to his lips. Keith deserved so much more than this small dark room, light years from Earth, stuck in the middle of a catastrophic battle for the universe. He deserved so much more than Shiro.

“I can hear you thinking,” Keith said, soft voice.

“Sorry.”

There was another sigh. “You could just talk about it.”

He could. He should. “I don’t know how.”

Keith shuffled. Beneath the sheets a hand wrapped around Shiro’s wrist. “Is this about the bayard?”

Even that was enough to cut Shiro. “Some.”

“We’ll get it back and defeat him. Maybe not this time, but we will. I believe in us.”

It was Shiro’s turn to sigh. Keith’s always had such faith in Shiro, and every day it was becoming harder to hear. All Shiro ever seemed to do was fuck up.

“Keith,” he pulled his hand away. “You shouldn’t just… you can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“This blind faith thing. I’m not—“ _worth it._ He couldn’t say the words, but Keith took a sharp breath in as though he had heard them anyway.

“Shiro what the hell are you talking about?”

Shiro wished again that the pain was still boring into his side. The bed and the darkness and Keith’s voice were all too soft for how fractious Shiro felt. “It’s just… maybe I’m not the best person to be captaining this thing. It seems like all I ever manage to do is make it worse,” Shiro laughed bitterly. “Today for instance.”

“The crash landing was _not_ your fault, Zarkon—“

“Who is the original black paladin.”

This got Keith to sit up in the bed. Shiro’s eyes had adjusted somewhat in the dark, but it was still difficult to pick out Keith’s expression. “Oh do not start with that shit Shiro. It’s clear there’s a lot of… history, but Black is better off in your care.”

Shiro couldn’t help the derogatory sound that escaped him.

Keith’s hand touched on his shoulder, and then those strangely bright eyes glared down at him. “She is. We all are.”

It was too much devotion from someone as good as Keith. Shiro turned his head away, looking at the darkened bedroom instead of at Keith’s face.

“Keith,” Shiro said, feeling the words burble up finally. “If something happens to me, if I don’t make it—“

The hand from his shoulder moved to cover his mouth. “Don’t you dare,” Keith snarled, suddenly. “Don’t you fucking dare Shirogane!”

Shiro stared in surprise up at Keith. His eyes now were practically luminescent in anger. 

“Now you listen to me,” Keith said, “I don’t trust easy or foolishly. I’m not some fucking naïve child, or fainting flower. I know what we’re in, I understand the risks, and I know I wouldn’t choose anyone else in this entire universe to be my leader. I’m here because I believe in you. _You_. As great as Voltron is, it won’t be Voltron that saves us, it’ll be you, it’ll be all of us, working together.” Keith looked away then, but kept his hand pressed over Shiro’s mouth. “I know you think you’re replaceable, but you’re not.“ Keith’s voice caught then. “A—and I won’t hear anyone say so, not even you. You’re the rightful black paladin, and our leader.”

Gently Shiro reached up and tugged Keith’s hand away. His own was shaking, and the bristly thing inside him felt like it was cracking apart. Shiro didn’t know how Keith always did this, could just plunge his hand straight into Shiro’s chest and still find something good to pull out.

Keith collapsed down into him, pressing his forehead to Shiro’s. Shiro welcomed it, cupping the back of the other man’s neck.

“You’re going to make it,” Keith whispered. His voice was something far too delicate and aching. The moment spun between them like spider silk. “I swear it.”

Shiro couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak.

“I swear it,” Keith said again.

And then it was like everything in Shiro’s chest did tear itself free. He couldn’t stand to listen to Keith make such a breathy promise and not—

His hand slid around to Keith’s jaw. Without thinking he tilted the man’s face and drew him into his lips.

The kiss was barely anything. A press, a touch, a painfully tender response to Keith’s declaration.

“Don’t,” Shiro whispered against Keith’s mouth. “You’re too important, you can’t swear something like that.”

But then Keith was climbing on top of him, his own hands scraping through Shiro’s undercut. When he leaned back in, he kissed Shiro properly, deep and hot and full of feeling. It dug its claws deep into Shiro’s core and he knew, instantly, he’d never be free of it. Didn’t ever want to be.

“I can swear whatever I like,” Keith said when he pulled back.

“Keith,” Shiro said helplessly.

They fell back into each other, kissing again and again with tongue and teeth and nail. They curled into each other, grasping like there was nothing else in the world to hold on to. Words caught between them, arguments that started and fell by the wayside. “You can’t,” Shiro said.

“I can,” Keith said. “Unless you want me to stop.”

Shiro’s answer was just to pull him back in and taste the mint of Keith’s toothpaste. The sheets were shoved off suddenly by one or both of them. When the glowing wound was revealed, Keith paused and pulled back.

“Fuck, I forgot! Are you okay?”

Shiro was still trying to catch his breath, and it took him a moment to figure out what Keith was even alarmed about. “Oh. Yeah. The pain patch, it’s fine.”

The glow gave more light to see Keith’s face, and he was frowning from his seat on Shiro’s lap. Shiro could see his hesitance then, and he hated it. Maybe this wasn’t the time or place, maybe Shiro wasn’t deserving of this gift Keith was offering but, _fuck_ , he wanted. He wanted it before there was no time left, he wanted it while he was still here heart-beating, lungs-heaving, and alive enough to have it.

And some part of himself wanted desperately to believe in Keith’s faith. Shiro wanted to see himself once more how Keith saw him. In his heart of hearts he wanted to believe he was good enough for Black. He wanted to believe that he was special, that he was enough. That Black had chosen him because he could live up to the expectations.

That was why seeing the bayard in Zarkon’s hands had hurt so bad. It had been like a symbol of how Black felt, a tangible representation of how Shiro didn’t have her whole heart. That maybe she was just biding her time until Shiro fell and Zarkon retook his rightful place as the black paladin.

But looking up at Keith now, seeing how fiercely and unapologetically he believed in Shiro…

If Shiro couldn’t believe in himself, then maybe he could believe in Keith. There was nothing stronger than Keith’s will, he knew this more certainly than anything else in the shifting sands of his own life.

He tugged Keith back down and kissed him.

There were dozens of reasons why they shouldn’t, but Shiro cast them all aside. He was tired of the fear, of the pain, of the breakneck speed of their lives. Keith lit his heart on fire, and tucked away in a tiny bed on a distant planet, Shiro just wanted to burn. He wanted to feel something good for once.

The kissing was in turns soft and rough, indulgent and desperate. Keith was clearly unskilled, but made up for it in mere _passion_. Shiro tilted his face, kissed him with a little more finesse, and he felt Keith tune into it and then mirror it back. Keith had always been a fast learned, and Shiro appreciated it more than ever now.

Kissing Keith was dizzying. Wondrous. When Shiro licked back into Keith’s mouth, Keith made a low moan that Shiro felt in his spine.

“Sh— I want,” Keith said pulling back for a breath. He tugged meaningfully at Shiro’s nightshirt.

In the dim lighting Keith looked like a fucking dream. His hair was mussed from having Shiro’s hands in it, and his lips were swollen and wet.

Shiro couldn’t think, he just tugged his sleep shirt up and off. Keith followed suit.

They fell back into kissing then, but instead of cloth there was skin. Body hair. Heat. Keith’s hand made its way down Shiro’s chest, and Shiro couldn’t help how his own traced along Keith’s sides. He was still so slender, but Shiro could feel the muscles shift beneath his hands as they kissed. He could feel the strength of him.

Then Keith’s hand was at the band of his underwear, the tips of his fingers just playing with the edge as if asking the question. Shiro responded in kind, letting his human hand touch the band on Keith’s underwear.

Shiro was hard, and could feel Keith’s own cock against his belly as the man rocked against him with their kissing. It was too much and not enough, and Shiro felt swept away by the tide of it. He wanted so badly to just pour himself into Keith, let the ferocity of those hands and eyes and clever tongue erase every bad thing that had come before.

“Whatever you want,” Shiro said between kisses. “Anything, anything for you—“

Keith’s fingers curled around the band and started tugging down.

It was clumsier than the shirt removal, too many limbs and not enough space. They knocked together, but it only amused Keith and he huffed a laugh as he stripped Shiro. Shiro let the mood catch him, grinning as he tangled Keith up in his own clothing removal.

But then they were bare, and Keith was resettling back on top of him, knees straddling and practically lying down. There was a hand between them to arrange their cocks so nothing got painfully squished.

Keith kept himself propped on his elbows, and suddenly Keith was all Shiro could see. Those beautiful eyes were luminous, his skin bathed in the purple glow from Shiro’s would. It maybe should have been eerie or off-putting, but Shiro could only find it lovely. Purple looked great on Keith. Everything looked great on Keith.

Nothing looked _especially_ fantastic though.

“Hi,” Keith said, grinning.

“Hi.”

“This okay?”

“More than okay,” Shiro said.

“And your wound?”

“Fuck the wound.”

Keith snorted and bowed his head to bump Shiro’s shoulder. “Shiro!”

Shiro ran a hand down the long and entirely bare back he now had access to. “I’m sorry Keith, you can’t present me with this opportunity and expect me to care about a little claw mark.”

“Shiro, it’s not little.”

Keith made a face just as Shiro opened his mouth, “tis but a scrat—“ Keith’s hand covered his mouth once more.

“Absolutely not. I will not have you quoting that awful movie when we’re about to have sex.”

At this Shiro’s eyebrows shot up, but his reply was muffled.

Keith removed the hand. “What?”

“Oh okay, so we are having sex? I wasn’t sure with how you wanted to fifth degree about a mere flesh wound.”

“Shiro!”

But then Shiro had hit his limit on talking. He drew Keith in and kissed him again. Shiro could feel the way Keith’s worries too fell by the wayside as he kissed him. It settled something in Shiro. Shiro couldn’t solve all the problems, couldn’t give Keith all he deserved, but maybe there could be this one small thing.

Maybe he could do right by Keith here and now.

Keith was warm and heavy on top of him, and Shiro took his time. He kissed Keith indulgently, like they had until the end of all the stars in the sky. He kept his metal hand mostly to the side but touched Keith with the one he had left. He traced Keith’s lovely neck, the strong shoulders, and curve of his spine. When he got to Keith’s ass he couldn’t help himself and squeezed a handful.

Keith groaned into his mouth and shifted. The movement ground them together, and immediately dumped a gallon of fuel on their simmering embers. The next kiss was off center as Keith puffed out a breath.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Shiro said.

And then Keith was moving again, getting his knees a little more under him and dipping a hand between them. Before Shiro could even ask, those long slender fingers were wrapping around his cock, around them both.

Keith jerked them once, and then let go and brought his hand up to lick it. It was more for the saliva than to be sexy, but it threw Shiro for a loop anyway. Everything about Keith was just so—

When Keith kissed him again, his wet hand wrapped around their cocks. Shiro almost bit the man’s lip at the shock of pleasure that ran through him.

But Keith didn’t stop. He stroked them together starting slow, kissing Shiro with skills he’d just learned, and yet already had mastered. Shiro couldn’t help touching him then with his metal hand, wrapping both around Keith’s hips to hold him, to feel the way his body was beginning to rock against Shiro’s.

“Keith,” Shiro groaned at the next stroke, slicker than before. He knew he was leaking, was so turned on just from this.

“Yeah,” Keith breathed against his mouth. “Just— is this okay?”

They parted just enough to catch each other’s eyes. Keith was so close, so intent. It felt like there truly was nothing else. No Galra, no war, no hurt or loss or pain. There was just this heat, this lovely pressure in his chest, and the rising tide of pleasure. Shiro could lose himself here, and there was no part of him that would regret it.

“Yes,” he said, soft. He lifted a hand to tuck a strand of Keith’s hair behind his ear and then curl there. Keith was gazing at him, and the moment spun out. The intimacy was the same they’d always carried between them, but now it was spread out like honey between them, sweetening everything. In that moment Keith was all that mattered.

“Are you with me?” Keith asked then. It was a simple question, but Shiro felt the weight of it press down.

“Always,” Shiro said. “I swear it.”

Saying those words back was like completing a loop. He understood more completely why Keith had said them before, what depth and layers it held. _You’re going to make it_ , he had said, but he had meant, _you have to make it._

Shiro arched up and took Keith’s mouth, kissing him hungrily. He poured in all his desperate hopes and dreams, the confessions he couldn’t give to Keith yet. He hoped, as they kissed and moved together, that Keith could feel it. That Keith could see beneath tawdry language, and feel everything Shiro had in his tender, over-bruised heart.

It became something messier then. Shiro’s hand joined Keith’s around their cocks, curling them together. Everything was hot and wet. Keith was panting, and Shiro could hear the sounds that were escaping his own mouth. They half-kissed as their cocks slid together, ruddy and slick and growing more desperate by the second.

“Shi-ro,” Keith whined. “I lo—“

Shiro kissed him hard. “Hold those,” he whispered. “We can’t— it’s not—“ They were both breathing heavy, hands never slowing as they frot against each other. “Hold those for when I need to hear them.”

Shiro didn’t know where those words had come from, but it felt suddenly important that Keith keep them and not make the declaration here and now.

And maybe it was just that Shiro needed to believe in a _later_. That there would be a future where such tender sentiment could be shared between them like a secret.

Keith’s next kiss was searing, like a promise. “Okay,” he said, and Shiro nearly fell apart to hear such easy agreement. Keith would never stop surprising him, how he understood Shiro so effortlessly. Every time that Shiro thought maybe he had wandered too far, gotten too lost, he need only look beside him and find Keith.

They were moving more frantically then, fucking through the curl of both their hands, gasping and moaning as they chased each other up the cliff side. Shiro could barely hold on, feeling Keith so whole and just right.

He hissed at another staticky shiver, his orgasm loomed closer. “Kei—“

And then Keith’s other hand was near his rib, near the wound, pressing against the skin. Keith collapsed further into Shiro, pressing their foreheads together as their fists worked faster and faster.

“You’re going to make it,” Keith said then, sure and breathless and devastating.

Shiro gasped against his lips, and rocked up against him. He felt himself split open everywhere Keith was touching him.

“I swear it,” Shiro said again in lieu of another three words.

Then, the pleasure crashed over him.

He made some sound, something that was almost a curse, almost Keith’s name. His cock fucked hard through their hands and pulsed, thick ropes of come spilling first over his belly and then their hands. Keith crushed his lips against Shiro’s cheek and followed him over with a gorgeous moan. It was messy, absolutely filthy as Keith came, and Shiro felt it, all of it, through the receding throbs of his own pleasure. He felt Keith trust him with this and so much more.

He felt, for the first time, worthy of it.

It left Shiro dazed and warm and… vulnerable. Their hands unraveled as Keith came down, and when Keith finally gave him all his weight Shiro was happy to take it. He wrapped his clean hand across Keith’s back to hold him tight.

There was silence then, heavy breathing between both of them. It felt careful. New. Some part inside of Shiro had changed, some part had tethered itself to Keith irreversibly. Maybe a better man could give Keith up, could free him for someone more worthy of Keith, but maybe too Shiro could become worthy. Someday he could be the man Keith saw, the man worthy of his affections.

Because Keith was right-- his faith was neither naïve nor blind. Never for a moment had he looked up Shiro with stars in his eyes. He admired Shiro for who he was, flaws and all.

When Keith finally moved, Shiro unwound his arm.

“How’s your wound?” Keith asked, eyes already dipping down to look. His eyes were back to their normal appearance, the strange glow gone.

“Fine.”

“And you?” He met Shiro's.

Shiro raised his metal hand and, for the first time, touched the fingers to Keith’s jaw. Immediately the man tilted into it, allowing Shiro to cup his face. “I’m good, Keith,” he said.

Keith turned his head just enough to lay a hiss on the metal palm. “I’m going to hold you to that,” he said softly.

Shiro pulled him down for a kiss. “As many times as it takes?” he asked when they parted.

“As many times as it takes,” Keith said.

**Author's Note:**

> I adored getting to remix your fic psiten!! If you haven't read theirs, pop over and give it a read, it's SPICY fun!
> 
> I'm @an_aphorism on twitter.


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